Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Exorcising The Evil Of Forum-Shopping, Kevin Clermont, Theodore Eisenberg

Kevin M. Clermont

Most of the business of litigation comprises pretrial disputes. A common and important dispute is over where adjudication should take place. Civil litigators deal with nearly as many change-of-venue motions as trials. The battle over venue often constitutes the critical issue in a case. The American way is to provide plaintiffs with a wide choice of venues for suit. But the American way has its drawbacks. To counter these drawbacks, an integral part of our court systems, and in particular the federal court system, is the scheme of transfer of venue "in the interest of justice." However, the leading evaluative …

How Employment-Discrimination Plaintiffs Fare In The Federal Courts Of Appeals, Kevin Clermont, Theodore Eisenberg, Stewart Schwab

Kevin M. Clermont

Employment-discrimination plaintiffs swim against the tide. Compared to the typical plaintiff, they win a lower proportion of cases during pretrial and after trial. Then, many of their successful cases are appealed. On appeal, they have a harder time in upholding their successes, as well in reversing adverse outcome. This tough story does not describe some tiny corner of the litigation world. Employment-discrimination cases constitute an increasing fraction of the federal civil docket, now reigning as the largest single category of cases at nearly 10 percent. In this article, we use official government data to describe the appellate phase of this …

Foreigners' Fate In America's Courts: Empirical Legal Research, Kevin Clermont, Theodore Eisenberg

Kevin M. Clermont

This article revisits the controversy regarding how foreigners fare in U.S. courts. The available data, if taken in a sufficiently big sample from numerous case categories and a range of years, indicate that foreigners have fared better in the federal courts than their domestic counterparts have fared. Thus, the data offer no support for the existence of xenophobic bias in U.S. courts. Nor do they establish xenophilia, of course. What the data do show is that case selection drives the outcomes for foreigners. Foreigners’ aversion to U.S. forums can elevate the foreigners’ success rates, when measured as a percentage of …

Judicial Politics, Death Penalty Appeals, And Case Selection: An Empirical Study, John Blume, Theodore Eisenberg

John H. Blume

Several studies try to explain case outcomes based on the politics of judicial selection methods. Scholars usually hypothesize that judges selected by partisan popular elections are subject to greater political pressure in deciding cases than are other judges. No class of cases seems more amenable to such analysis than death penalty cases. No study, however, accounts both for judicial politics and case selection, the process through which cases are selected for death penalty litigation. Yet, the case selection process cannot be ignored because it yields a set of cases for adjudication that is far from a random selection of cases. …

Trends In The Prevalence And Mortality Of Cognitive Impairment In The United States: Is There Evidence Of A Compression Of Cognitive Morbidity, Kenneth Langa, Eric Larson, Jason Karlawish, David Cutler, Mohammed Kabeto, Scott Kim, Allison Rosen

Jason Karlawish

BACKGROUND: Recent medical, demographic, and social trends might have had an important impact on the cognitive health of older adults. To assess the impact of these multiple trends, we compared the prevalence and 2-year mortality of cognitive impairment (CI) consistent with dementia in the United States in 1993 to 1995 and 2002 to 2004. METHODS: We used data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), a nationally representative population-based longitudinal survey of U.S. adults. Individuals aged 70 years or older from the 1993 (N = 7,406) and 2002 (N = 7,104) waves of the HRS were included. CI was determined …

A New Family Of Nonexchangeable Copulas For Positive Dependence, Roy Cerqueti, Claudio Lupi

Claudio Lupi

Long-Term Survival For Patients With Acute Decompensated Heart Failure According To Ejection Fraction Findings, Andrew Coles, Kimberly Fisher, Chad Darling, Jorge Yarzebski, David Mcmanus, Joel Gore, Darleen Lessard, Robert Goldberg

Jorge L. Yarzebski

Limited data exist about the long-term prognosis of patients with acute decompensated heart failure (ADHF) further stratified according to ejection fraction (EF) findings. The primary objective of this population-based observational study was to characterize and compare trends in long-term prognosis after an episode of ADHF across 3 EF strata. Hospital medical records were reviewed for 3,604 residents of the Worcester, Massachusetts, metropolitan area who were discharged after ADHF from all 11 medical centers in central Massachusetts during 1995, 2000, 2002, and 2004 and had EF measurements during their index hospitalizations. The average age of this population was 75 years, most …

Diagnostic Performance Of Cardiac Troponin I For Early Rule-In And Rule-Out Of Acute Myocardial Infarction: Results Of A Prospective Multicenter Trial, Alan Storrow, Robert Christenson, Richard Nowak, Deborah Diercks, Adam Singer, Alan Wu, Erik Kulstad, Frank Lovecchio, Christian Fromm, Gary Headden, Tracie Potis, Christopher Hogan, Jon Schrock, Daniel Zelinski, Marna Greenberg, James Ritchie, Janna Chamberlin, Kurtis Bray, Daniel Rhodes, Deirdre Trainor, Dawn Holmes, Paula Southwick

Marna R Greenberg DO, MPH, FACEP

OBJECTIVES: To compare emergency department TnI serial sampling intervals, determine optimal diagnostic thresholds, and report representative diagnostic performance characteristics for early rule-in and rule-out of MI. METHODS: We prospectively measured TnI (AccuTnI+3™, Beckman Coulter) at serial time intervals in 1929 subjects with chest pain or equivalent ischemic symptoms suggestive of acute coronary syndromes at 14 medical centers. Diagnosis was adjudicated by an independent central committee. RESULTS: TnI ≥0.03ng/mL provided 96.0% sensitivity and 89.4% specificity at 1-3h after admission, and 94.9% sensitivity and 86.7% specificity at 3-6h. NPV (rule-out, non-MI) was 99.5% at 1-3h, and 99.0% at 3-6h when TnI is …

Pubertal And Adult Leydig Cell Function In Mullerian Inhibiting Substance-Deficient Mice, Xiufeng Wu, Ramamani Arumugam, Stephen Baker, Mary Lee

Mary M. Lee

Mullerian inhibiting substance (MIS) causes Mullerian duct regression during sexual differentiation and regulates postnatal Leydig cell development. MIS knockout (MIS-KO) mice with targeted deletions of MIS develop Leydig cell hyperplasia, but their circulating androgen concentrations are reportedly unaltered. We compared reproductive hormone profiles, androgen biosynthesis, and the expression of key steroidogenic and metabolic enzymes in MIS-KO and wild-type (WT) mice at puberty (36 d) and sexual maturity (60 d). In pubertal animals, basal testosterone and LH concentrations in plasma were lower in MIS-KO than WT mice, whereas human chorionic gonadotropin-stimulated testosterone concentrations were similar. In adults, basal LH, and both …

The Pitman Inequality For Exchangeable Random Vectors, J. Behboodian, Naveen Bansal, Gholamhossein Hamedani, Hans Volkmer

Naveen Bansal

In this short article the following inequality called the “Pitman inequality” is proved for the exchangeable random vector (X₁,X₂,…,X_n)(X1,X2,…,Xn) without the assumption of continuity and symmetry for each component X_iXi:

P(|1n∑i=1nXi|≤|∑i=1nαiXi|)≥12 ,

where allαi≥0 are special weights with∑i=1nαi=1.

Link Spamming Wikipedia For Profit, Andrew West, Jian Chang, Krishna Venkatasubramanian, Oleg Sokolsky, Insup Lee

Oleg Sokolsky

Collaborative functionality is an increasingly prevalent web technology. To encourage participation, these systems usually have low barriers-to-entry and permissive privileges. Unsurprisingly, ill-intentioned users try to leverage these characteristics for nefarious purposes. In this work, a particular abuse is examined -- link spamming -- the addition of promotional or otherwise inappropriate hyperlinks.

Our analysis focuses on the "wiki" model and the collaborative encyclopedia, Wikipedia, in particular. A principal goal of spammers is to maximize *exposure*, the quantity of people who view a link. Creating and analyzing the first Wikipedia link spam corpus, we find that existing spam strategies perform quite poorly …

Generating A Dynamic Synthetic Population – Using An Age-Structured Two-Sex Model For Household Dynamics, Mohammad-Reza Namazi-Rad, Payam Mokhtarian, Pascal Perez

Payam Mokhtarian

Generating a reliable computer-simulated synthetic population is necessary for knowledge processing and decision-making analysis in agent-based systems in order to measure, interpret and describe each target area and the human activity patterns within it. In this paper, both synthetic reconstruction (SR) and combinatorial optimisation (CO) techniques are discussed for generating a reliable synthetic population for a certain geographic region (in Australia) using aggregated- and disaggregated-level information available for such an area. A CO algorithm using the quadratic function of population estimators is presented in this paper in order to generate a synthetic population while considering a two-fold nested structure for …

Models For Improving Patient Throughput And Waiting At Hospital Emergency Departments, Jomon Aliyas Paul, Lin Li

Jomon Aliyas Paul

Background: Overcrowding diminishes Emergency Department (ED) care delivery capabilities.

Objectives: We developed a generic methodology to investigate the causes of overcrowding and to identify strategies to resolve them, and applied it in the ED of a hospital participating in the study.

Methods: We utilized Discrete Event Simulation (DES) to capture the complex ED operations. Using DES results, we developed parametric models for checking the effectiveness and quantifying the potential gains from various improvement alternatives. We performed a follow-up study to compare the outcomes before and after the model recommendations were put into effect at the hospital participating …

A Randomized, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Study To Assess The Effect Of Recombinant Human Erythropoietin On Functional Outcomes In Anemic, Critically Ill, Trauma Subjects: The Long Term Trauma Outcomes Study, Fred Luchette, Michael Pasquale, Timothy Fabian, Wayne Langholff, Marsha Wolfson

Michael D Pasquale MD, FACS, FCCM

BACKGROUND: Achieving a higher hemoglobin (Hb) level might allow the anemic, critically ill, trauma patient to have an improved outcome during rehabilitation therapy. METHODS: Patients with major blunt trauma orthopedic injuries were administered epoetin alfa or placebo weekly both in hospital and for up to 12 weeks after discharge or until the Hb level was >12.0 g/dL, whichever occurred first. The 36-question Short Form Health Assessment questionnaire (SF-36) was used to evaluate physical function (PF) outcomes at baseline, at hospital discharge, and at several time points posthospital discharge. RESULTS: One hundred ninety-two patients were enrolled (epoetin alfa [n = 97], …

A Probabilistic Predictive Model For Residential Mobility In Australia, Mohammad-Reza Namazi-Rad, Nagesh Shukla, Albert Munoz, Payam Mokhtarian, Jun Ma

Payam Mokhtarian

Household relocation modelling is an integral part of the planning process as residential movements influence the demand for community facilities and services. Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs (FaHCSIA) created the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) program to collect reliable longitudinal data on family and household dynamics. Socio-demographic information (such as general health situation and well-being, lifestyle changes, residential mobility, income and welfare dynamics, and labour market dynamics) is collected from the sampled individuals and households. The data shows that approximately 17% of Australian households and 13% of couple families in the HILDA sample …

Rapid Door To Balloon Time In The Treatment Of Acute St- Elevation Myocardial Infarction Meaningfully Reduces Overall Hospital Stay, Amit N. Nanavati Md, Nainesh Patel Md, Bruce Feldman Do, J Patrick Kleaveland Md, Orlando E. Rivera Rn, David A. Cox Md

Bruce A. Feldman DO

No abstract provided.

A Model Averaging Approach For High-Dimensional Regression, Tomohiro Ando, Ker-Chau Li

Tomohiro Ando

No abstract provided.

Approximate Bayesian Computation In State Space Models, Gael Martin, Brendan Mccabe, Christian Robert, Worapree Ole Maneesoonthorn

Worapree Ole Maneesoonthorn

A new approach to inference in state space models is proposed, based on approximate Bayesian computation (ABC). ABC avoids evaluation of the likelihood function by matching observed summary statistics with statistics computed from data simulated from the true process; exact inference being feasible only if the statistics are sufficient. With finite sample sufficiency unattainable in the state space setting, we seek asymptotic sufficiency via the maximum likelihood estimator (MLE) of the parameters of an auxiliary model. We prove that this auxiliary model-based approach achieves Bayesian consistency, and that - in a precise limiting sense - the proximity to (asymptotic) sufficiency …

Comparison Of Methods For Estimating The Effect Of Salvage Therapy In Prostate Cancer When Treatment Is Given By Indication., Jeremy Taylor, Jincheng Shen, Edward Kennedy, Lu Wang, Douglas Schaubel

Edward H. Kennedy

For patients who were previously treated for prostate cancer, salvage hormone therapy is frequently given when the longitudinal marker prostate-specific antigen begins to rise during follow-up. Because the treatment is given by indication, estimating the effect of the hormone therapy is challenging. In a previous paper we described two methods for estimating the treatment effect, called two-stage and sequential stratification. The two-stage method involved modeling the longitudinal and survival data. The sequential stratification method involves contrasts within matched sets of people, where each matched set includes people who did and did not receive hormone therapy. In this paper, we evaluate …